I don't know how well they can "read people's minds" but I am pretty sure I heard somewhere that scientists have identified a characteristic brainwave associated with recognition. So you can show pictures of people and places to a subject, and see if they are familiar. Not exactly solid evidence that can lock anyone up, but maybe enough to get them to "sing"

It is well known by intelligent people that torture is pretty unsuccessful at extracting reliable information even the GESTAPO knew that but on film and TV it is always displayed as very effective.My interest was whether reliable hi-tech methods are being developed.

I recall seeing such a machine illustrated in in a pop culture scientific science magazine in the thirties has technology court up with science fiction yet.

What a good question and I am sure if some body could invent a method for this, they would be very rich in a short time. We can already in a sense gain some information from brain waves but not in a sense of reading the waves directly. A lie detector for example will show change, a poker player bluffing sometimes shows change, but indirectly of course to what you mean with your question. Information as we all know can be sent in wave packets over a distance using light in such technology as fibre optics. I think that Yes in the future what you suggest will be possible to do if we can find the method to read the information and electromagnetic field of the brain.

One of the limitations of obtaining information from brainwaves is that it is unethical to insert probes directly into the brain this of course would not apply if the person being interrogated had what the authorities regarded as information of value to the military

As far as I can tell the suggestions have been aimed in the wrong direction.If you hurt someone enough they will say anything you want.So the quickest way to get them to say what the torturer wants is to make sure that the victim knows what their captors want to hear.To that end, the "mind reading" device should be attached to the torturer so that the victim can find out as quickly as possible what they need to say to get the pain to stop.

Obviously, there';s no way to actually obtain information of any use this way- but that's exactly what the current system offers.

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